


A Jackson Goes A-Wooing

by aurilly



Category: Psmith - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 04:44:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11661885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly
Summary: Aunts will be aunts.Psmith prevails even over the aunt-liest of them all.





	A Jackson Goes A-Wooing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HotUtilitarian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotUtilitarian/gifts).



It is a truth universally accepted, albeit with painful resignation, that every young man in possession of anything at all, shall be plagued by aunts. Some aunts may mean well, and some may be minions of the dark lord himself. But they are always there, sowing destruction for nephews.

The first sign of an oncoming attack usually begins with a formal summons.

Today, the summons came from Marjory, who had, in the kind of shockingly sudden metamorphosis practiced by sisters and Kafka characters, transformed from impish kid into some man’s fiancée. However, despite many new frills on her dress, and a perilously pinned hairdo that threatened at any moment to fray, she had not lost the habit of barging into a brother’s room and sitting on his legs while he slept.

Ever since he’d come into his full height, Mike had that much more leg to sit upon. He groaned at the pressure on his shins.

“Aunt Florence wants to see you,” Marjory said by way of greeting.

“Where?” Mike mumbled, trying to kick her off.

“Right now. She sent me to fetch you.”

“She’s here?” It was early, yes, and Marjory had a tendency to jump right into things instead of giving a chap the context he needed, but this all struck Mike as beyond anything normal. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He’d gone to bed the night before, entirely aunt-free. Although predatory, aunts tended not to migrate during the night.

“Yes, she arrived first thing this morning. Said she had left guests at her estate to make this important emergency visit. She’s been closeted with Mother and Father for an hour. She shooed me out of the dining room! Before I’d finished my tea.” Far from a smug messenger, Marjory sounded just as outraged as Mike.

“Utter tyrant,” he empathized. 

Mike’s aunt Florence was of the commanding, ill-humoured sort. The kind who regularly took a nephew and emotionally pummeled him into a spineless jelly. She had a knack of squinting, in a menacing manner that had long made Mike wish to recommend the use of a monocle, such as his friend Psmith used. However, such recommendations served merely to aggravate, and therefore prolong the harangue at hand. And Aunt Florence’s harangues were already quite lengthy, and happened to fall on the most beautiful, most ideal for cricket afternoons.

A quick look out the window assured Mike that this was indeed going to be a lovely day.

“She has a meaningful gleam in her eye,” Marjory said, her voice thrilling with unformed supposition.

“Are you sure it isn’t the squint?” Mike asked, and then added, “Very well. Shove off, if you want me to go downstairs. I do hope it isn’t about my future or any rot like that.”

Despite the annoyance he felt at being roused earlier than he wanted during what was supposed to be a relaxing week at the old homestead, Mike dressed with alacrity. A summons from Lady Bassington Bassington to a nephew was on par with a summons from a headmaster; a boy or man had better proceed with all haste, lest the soup boil even hotter for him.

So, it was only five minutes later when Mike entered the breakfast room. As usual for his entrance into this small but pleasant room, everyone else had already come and gone. Everyone except Aunt Florence, who sat at the head of the table and glowered at the sugar bowl. Mike mumbled a greeting and made his way directly to the buffet.

“The buttons on your shirt are one off.”

Mike looked down at himself. That explained the odd sensation he’d had, as he bounded down the stairs, that his left collar was trying to choke him. Now, he made a movement to correct the mistake, but after undoing one button, it belatedly occurred to him that he’d have to take the shirt off entirely, which didn’t seem appropriate for such an audience.

She squinted at him. “Your father tells me that you recently finished your studies at the ‘varsity.”

“Yes, Aunt Florence.”

“He also tells me that you plan to split your time between running estates and playing cricket.”

“Yes, Aunt Florence.”

“Nonsense.”

Mike sputtered, hard enough that the distant politeness was shaken off. “I… I beg your pardon?”

“You shall do no such thing. The idea is absurd. These are not acceptable pursuits for a young man such as yourself, with all your accomplishments. A young man like you should not be a cricketer.”

“But I haven’t got any accomplishments. And anyway, Joe plays for England.” 

“You, Michael, are not Joe.”

No, Mike thought to himself. He was not Joe. Joe was a lucky fellow currently somewhere in the Lake Country, limbering himself up, instead of facing this most intimidating of aunts. 

“You are the last hope for this family, Michael. What you want—no, what you need— is a proper career. And a wife.”

Mike, who was just then in the process of transferring a goodish helping of kippers onto a plate, flailed. The kind of flail that an inexperienced practitioner of the Charleston might have performed upon hearing the record skip. Kippers, spoon, and ancestral china all went flying. 

Mike stared at where the food had landed on the rug, right on a nice ball of dog hair. It had been the last helping of kippers. His shoulders slumped and he fixed a sad plate of bread and jam and moved to the table. He felt as worn down as Job, on that final trial. Next thing she would say was that he ought to try banking again.

“You already have one year of banking on your CV,” she continued in an echo of the nasal wheezing of words that had just sounded in Mike’s head. “All you need is the right connection to set you back up, this time in a higher position. A connection through marriage usually works best. And I know of just the girl for you.”

“Oh?” Mike wheezed. 

“She is a beautiful girl, not that it matters. The daughter of a lord. A sweet, accomplished girl, who will one day inherit a large fortune. A fortune this family has need of, ever since your father’s Argentine fiasco. Her father will find you an acceptable position and—”

“I say…” Mike started.

“You will say nothing. I have already spoken with your parents. The matter is settled. You leave with me today for my estate. I have invited a small group of guests for the week. You will come, and put your best foot forward.” Aunt Florence squinted once more, with even more than her usual piercingness. “You _will_ woo her, gallantly, devotedly, and successfully. You _will_ impress her father with what intelligence and capability you possess. And I will hear no more of managing estates or professional cricket.”

“Yes, Aunt Florence.”

There was no arguing, not with mother and father had already agreed, the traitors. It had been hard with the Jacksons for years, but Mike had not known it to be quite so bad that he needed to be sold. 

He finished chewing a piece of toast and then, with a stomach still mostly empty, he rose from the table.

“You are going to pack, I assume? The train leaves at two.”

“Yes, Aunt Florence.”

Mike located his suitcase at the back of the closet, sighing as he moved his cricket things aside to pull it out. He laid it open on the bed and squinted at it, in retaliation for its crimes of association. However, instead of filling it, he stared at its emptiness for a minute, and then turned to the desk, where he began writing a telegram.

* * *

Mike’s preferred procedure for a train journey went as follows: find an empty car, snag a seat by the window, smoke a cigarette, eat an apple, aim the core at the neatest object he could see out the window, and then settle in for a fitful nap.

Riding with Aunt Florence, however, disrupted his habit entirely. She spotted an old acquaintance of her school days on the platform, and insisted that they all share a car. The first hint of Mike’s fingers moving to the pocket in which his cigarette case lay prompted a vicious squint. He was forced to politely offer his apple to the aged friend, who handed the core some minutes later to the porter. No nap was allowed.

By the time they had dismounted, driven through the town and along the winding driveway to stop at the castle’s entrance, Mike was exhausted. The train had been an hour delayed, and the clucking that had ensued between his aged relative and her friend had been of a fever pitch. 

He climbed the stairs two at a time, as he'd done as a boy, back when a visit had revolved more around playing cricket on the grounds and ragging the friendly staff. However, this evening, he made his way to the door with none of the speed or energy of those youthful visits. Today he may as well have been climbing the last mile of Everest.

A small flock of guests was milling about, in the awkward hour before dinner. Aunt Florence introduced Mike to Archies and Anthonys and Georges. One of the Georges had been a year or two ahead of Mike at Wrykyn, a recognition that made Mmike brighten infinitesimally. Then a few female specimens emerged from stage left.

"Michael,” Aunt Florence said, with meaning. “Meet Madeline Basset. Madeline, this is my nephew, Michael Jackson. He will be here for a few days, visiting.” 

Mike had always classified girls into two camps: those who were sisterly, and those who were aunts in training. He understood that all aunts, technically speaking, were generally also sisters, but there was a definite fork in the developmental road, down which girls went one of two ways. Before this moment, he’d never encountered a specimen who conformed to neither type. She looked at Mike with a faraway glance, one so dreamy that Mike could tell whether the powers that be had left her in the dark about this hopped-up scheme or whether she had indeed been told, and was covering it up.

“Was it you I saw at Lord’s a few weeks back, playing for England?” she asked in a sing-songy voice, a voice completely at odds with the subject in question. 

“No, that was my brother Joe.”

“Michael is quite the cricket prodigy as well,” Aunt Florence said, conceding in the name of her cause a compliment on what she considered one of Mike’s more useless talents, right up there with balancing spoons on his nose.

Nevertheless, Mike perked up. This girl had the air of an odd fish, but if she liked cricket, she may turn out to be a sister after all. Mike didn’t want to marry her—had never met a girl he’d wanted to marry, and couldn’t really fathom ever meeting one—but at least he was accustomed to sisters. 

But then this Madeline ruined the illusion by saying, “I’ve always thought cricket like a darling little chipmunk’s game of hide and seek. Darting to and fro, with the fairies as bowlers and the mean gardeners as the batters. Don’t you think?”

Years spent as best friend to Psmith had moulded Mike into rather an expert in dealing with eccentricity. However, this remark left him at a rare loss. Even worse, her dreamily expectant expression demanded a response, which Psmith usually did not require. But how was Mike—how was anyone—to respond to such a question?

“I know you have rarely seen such a pretty girl, but don’t stand there opening and closing your mouth like a trout,” Aunt Florence said, misunderstanding the situation and masterfully paying Madeline a compliment on Mike’s behalf, all of which merely caused Mike to gape some more. But at least she’d spared him the need to say anything. “Go on and dress for dinner.”

“I will do the same, Lady Bassington Bassington,” Madeline said. Turning to Mike again with an inexplicably wistful smile, she added, “It was lovely to meet you.”

Mike gurgled in response. He watched as she ascended the stairs with a floaty grace.

“Do pull yourself together, Michael,” Aunt Florence admonished. “You were barely mammalian just now. You’ve bungled the first impression, I dare say, so I had better see an improvement at dinner. Much depends on this.” She wandered away, muttering darkly to herself.

“Yes, Aunt Florence,” he choked out, while she was barely in earshot.

With an even heavier heart than when he’d entered the house, Mike made his way to the room in the east wing that had always been his when visiting. A squawk upon opening the door indicated that Aunt Florence had given it to some female this time. He stood paralyzed in the hallway until Lefferts, the butler, happened to pass by. He looked at Mike with a pitying eye and led him to a small room overlooking the driveway.

He dressed for dinner with the quiet _distrait_ of one of those Fragonard figures off to the corner of the canvas. He didn’t want to look nice for this girl. If he looked his worst, perhaps she wouldn’t like him. But if she didn’t like him, Aunt Florence would have him sent to a bank. There was no way out.

And so he dressed, but with a chrysanthemum in his buttonhole as a silent gesture of defiance.

* * *

Mike passed the small hours in a fitful sleep that plagued by nightmares of bunnies and fairies and stars. From time to time, Psmith’s reassuring shadow flitted in and out of the scenes, like a guardian angel who never became corporeal enough to touch, no matter how desperately Mike reached for him.

The evening had left him in a state of emotional ashes. Aunt Florence had, with all the subtlety of New York taxi driver, inveigled Mike into showing Madeline the entirety of the grounds, never mind the dark. She had hinted that he should keep her company instead of going to play billiards with Archie, Anthony and George. She had insisted that Mike be left alone with this species of alien wearing a human face who rendered him speechless and red in the face. He’d had nothing to say, and Madeline had filled that silence with the oddest utterings. Finally, a jolly sort of girl named Angela had come to rescue him (or Madeline, it was hard to say), and allowed Mike to trudge upstairs and into his pajamas.

By the time that Mike’s conscious brain identified the current knocking sound as reality (as opposed to a dream in which a wee woodpecker dug for its heart’s desire behind the first layer of bark), the knocker had turned the knob and was letting himself in.

Mike was about to sit up and squawk just as the girl he’d walked in on the day before had squawked, but when he saw Psmith slip in, simply yet immaculately attired, and with a gently fond expression on his calm brow, he lay back and goggled from his pillow.

“What on earth are you doing here?” he asked, even as his heart leapt.

“Didn’t you expect me?” Psmith asked, quietly shutting the door behind him.

“Of course not. I had no idea you were invited. I had no idea my aunt knew you at all.”

“I wasn’t. And she doesn’t. And yet…” Psmith let his monocle fall, along with his entire face. “Do you think so little of me, that I could receive a missive as tragic as your telegram, and not instantly rush to your side, social niceties such as invitations or not? Was that not your intent in sending it? A cry for help, which I, as both a Psmith and a true comrade, could not help but answer? Would you not have come by the earliest train if our positions were reversed?”

“Er,” Mike said. “I suppose. You know I would.” He doubted he’d be able to summon the nerve required to present himself at a country estate uninvited—for this was the kind of thing that went beyond even the advanced ragging in which Mike was a proficient—but of course he would do anything he could to help if Psmith were ever in need. Over the years, Mike had largely learned to respond to what Psmith meant, if not what he said.

“Well, there you are,” Psmith replied, mollified by Mike’s understated assertion. “And so here I am, at your service during these harrowing times. I shall not linger in your hair, but if you ever have need of me, you need simply to ring for your valet.”

“But I haven’t got a valet,” Mike pointed out.

“You do now. You have me.” Psmith bowed a stately bow. “Such was the guise I assumed in order to enter this house. I arrived near dawn, having left the two-seater at garage in town. I made the drive from there to here in a cab, in order to create the right impression when I arrived and presented myself to the housekeeper. I deliberated during the journey about the name behind which I should sheathe myself. Carruthers? Beecham? Slowe? In the end, I hit upon a crackerjack: Smith. Without the P, you understand.”

“But that’s just your name.”

“I can always count on you, Comrade Jackson, to take the hint, to play along. If ever you decide to enter the spy trade, you will bring down kingdoms, and no one will be the wiser.”

Mike shook his head. It was too early for all this. “It’ll never work, Smith. No one would ever believe it.”

“They already have. The butler at this establishment, a charming fellow named Lefferts who has already regaled me with tragic tales of his lumbago, as well as previously unknown stories from your boyhood—”

“Oh no,” Mike moaned, embarrassed in advance and preparing to be teased for the rest of his life.

“—has not only believed my tale, but already set me up with a snug little room in the uppermost attic. There’s a charming view of the gutters from the window. A small room, to be certain, but not wholly lacking in charm. The rattle of the pipes and squeaking of floorboards provide an ethereal sort of symphony. The bed is of a firmness that will, no doubt, continue my development in sainthood.” 

“I never took Lefferts for such a fool. You’re the least valet-looking valet I’ve ever seen. Your button-hole alone gives the game away.”

“Your humility has always counted among your most recommendable qualities. Do you think I would insult you by looking any other way? A man who has in his employ such a one as me… well, it sounds like hot stuff. Hot enough to win the hearts of even the most particular woman. Speaking of which, have you met the target in question?”

Mike drew his knees up, hid his face between them, and groaned. He felt the bed dip as Psmith took a relaxed seated position beside him.

“I take it the situation is dire,” Psmith surmised. “What ails her? A missing finger? A back reminiscent of Quasimodo? A voice like a hippopotamus?”

“No, nothing like that,” Mike mumbled. “She’s really rather pretty. But she says the rummiest things. Leaves a chap entirely blank.”

“What sorts of thing?”

“She doesn’t even understand cricket. Only goes to matches for the lemonade they serve in the tent. Thinks a century is another name for thunderous applause.”

“An understandable confusion of cause and effect,” Psmith mused. He’d always been more phlegmatic about cricket, and therefore more forgiving at people’s ignorance in the subject than Mike.

“And talks awful rot. Stuff about the stars being god's daisy chain and some such.”

“I once read a profound and well-argued treatise positing something similar. You should count yourself lucky, Comrade. This girl has the makings of true genius, the sort of Montesquieu our troubled century needs.”

“It doesn’t matter. The idea of breakfasting with such a girl for the rest of my life.” Mike shivered.

“Think of the bright side. You’ve always slept through breakfast. This merely gives you incentive to continue in that restful and restorative vein.”

“I don’t see why I have to get married at all. Why can’t life be like school, forever and ever?” Mike had a different thought. “Or like when we lived in London, but without the bank. I didn’t mind a bit when it was you jawing my ear off at breakfast every morning.”

Psmith twitched, a repressed gesture of affront. “I’ll admit my conversation is not at its most buffed and polished before that opening salvo of oolong, but I wouldn’t call it jaw—”

“You know what I mean.”

“You want a chum, nothing more,” Psmith said in a quietly sad sort of whisper, but before Mike could ask why, he asked next, “And your aunt is dead set on the match?”

“She’s got my Mater and Pater in on it, too. I don’t understand what happened. For years, they’ve been happy with the idea of me running your father’s estates. I can’t imagine why…”

“Ah,” Psmith breathed. In the only hesitant motion Mike had ever seen him make, he made a couple of aborted attempts to pat Mike on his knee, before eventually settling for the top of his foot. “And so we come to the crux of the matter, to the painful tale.”

“What is it?” Mike asked. He was not yet worried, because Psmith’s tales were usually painful, until they weren’t.

“The letter my father wrote to your father appears to have arrived before mine to you. In that time, they must have contacted your aunt, hatched this scheme, and whisked you away. The doomed missive sits, I imagine, forgotten in the front hallway, possibly brushed off the table and into those large Victorian urns that grace your family’s vestibule.”

“What letter?” 

“Both letters were sent with the intent of apprising the clan Jackson of the ruined state of the Smith family fortunes.”

“You don’t mean to say your father…”

“Got distracted from the maintenance of his business long enough that it got away from him entirely? Yes, my dear Comrade Jackson. You have, as usual directed yourself straight to the heart of the matter.”

It was lucky that Mike was already in bed, for you could have knocked him over. As it was, he simply let his legs fall straight again, with the result that Psmith’s hand slid up his shin towards his knee. 

“I _am_ sorry, Smith.”

“We are now even more twin souls. Both cast asunder by the waves of ill fortune, off into the world to sink to the depths or float together, perhaps all the way to the shores of Cythera.”

Mike had ragged all through his years of Greek and had no idea where Cythera was. “All right,” he said.

Psmith beamed. “I’m glad to hear the possibility is one you might consider considering, even if only as an alternative to drowning. I will take heart, and encouragement, from such a sentiment. Anyway, easy come, easy go, as our American comrades say. And nothing has ever come easier than my father’s fortune. Socialism teaches us this kind of pragmatism. It is a constant gift, a boost to the mind and spirit. I wish I could find the man or woman who left that pamphlet on that train for me to find. I think of that day often as a preeminently fateful one. For in the space of a morning I was introduced to my life’s ethos, and to you.”

Psmith stared at Mike with a benevolent fondness. Mike’s stomach rumbled.

“You’re taking it rather well,” Mike said. “I didn’t take it half as well when it happened to me.”

“I had the benefit of your inspiring example.”

“What does your pater say?”

"There was some talk last night, before I packed my bags and slipped away to your aid, of me going into the fish business. I have an uncle, you see, who is the Tyrant of Trout, or the Marquis of Mackerel, or some such.”

“You and fish?” Mike asked. “I don’t quite see it.”

“Your eyes are too keen to miss anything, thus proving the scheme’s utter intangibility. If you don’t see it, then there is nothing to see. Case closed.”

“But what will you do? You’ll have to get some sort of job.”

Psmith rose, as courteously as a count. “I have one, unless my services do not meet with your approval. I am your valet, don’t you remember?”

“But that’s all rot.”

“Was your position as my confidential secretary and advisor all rot?”

Mike had rather thought it was, but the aggrieved look on Psmith’s face informed him otherwise. So, he said, “It wasn’t a proper job, though. It was… I don’t know. It was being chums and all.”

“This will be similar. 

“Neither job pays.”

“There is more to life than money. I feel, for the first time, that I have truly entered into practical socialism. I believe I’ll quite enjoy my time as a valet. I never knew the servants at estates such as these were so interesting. I’ve already befriended the cook, dispensed advice to the footman about his amorous feelings towards the third floor housemaid, and learned a great deal about Leonard, the local bookie.”

“All before breakfast?” Mike asked, astounded.

“You’ll find that breakfast has passed, Comrade. But I’ve saved you some kippers and toast.”

Mike had been so half-asleep and confused that he’d failed to notice the tray Psmith had set on a table when he entered. Now, Psmith brought it over to the bed and opened it to reveal a full feast.

“You _are_ a chap!”

“Well, a valet, actually, but I’ll accept the compliment with my customary grace.”

“There’s enough here for at least two. Have you breakfasted.”

“Yes, but this can serve as elevenses.”

Together, they drank the now-lukewarm tea and munched on heapings of everything delicious. Whatever her other faults, Aunt Florence had in her employ a most excellent cook.

As his belly filled, and he listened to Psmith’s endless (but endlessly entertaining) descriptions of the inner lives of servants Mike now felt he’d never truly known, Mike experienced a slow but deliberate awakening. All the awkwardness that talking to Madeline—to most girls, really—was entirely absent. There _was_ someone with whom he wouldn’t mind sharing breakfast for the rest of his life--getting up for it, even--and not entirely in a chummy schoolboy way. There _was_ someone who made him feel—as Madeline had described the night before—as though he were a hot air balloon whose summer house lay among the clouds.

The game of love, always such an obscured one to Mike, suddenly cleared, like frost from a winter window. With Psmith, the game felt as natural and straightforward as cricket. Mike could play cricket as naturally as he could breathe. He was a natural batsman, and, if he read some of Psmith’s previous statements in a new light, Psmith had been sending him the equivalent a nice, slow bowl, with only enough spin to preserve his dignity. A classic bowl, based on Mike's knowledge of Psmith's playing. All Mike had to do was step up and swing. 

And swing he did. Metaphorically, however. He wouldn't have hit Psmith for the world. And the bats were all in the games shed, round the other side of the house. He finished his bite, leaned forward, and aimed straight for Psmith's still speaking lips.

Mike's aim, ever true, did not fail him today. Even with this moving target, his lips connected, direct and true. The kiss felt dry, a bit unsettled, but Mike's genius had always been in his solid follow through. Instead of skittering away, as a less confident player might have done, he moved even closer in, pressing his chest flush against Psmith's and shuffling one leg into the inverted vee created by Psmith's elegant sitting position.

Psmith had been speaking, so there was no awkward initial chasteness. Mike's tongue brushed against Psmith's quivering lower lip, and he was rewarded by a sound he had previously not thought possible to come from his friend—an undignified moan.

One of the other qualities that had always propelled Mike to the top of whichever eleven he'd happened to join, was his canny sense of when to double down. This was one of those moments. Instead of breaking the kiss--for in the back of his mind he knew that, if given an opportunity, Psmith might start talking again--he leaned into it.

“Was that all right?” Mike asked when he finally stopped for air (and another bite of muffin).

Psmith polished and then repolished his monocle, silent for longer than Mike had ever witnessed. Finally, looking up with glassy, focused, hungry eyes, he said, “The whisper goes round the clubs. Mike Jackson has purchased spectacles. He has seen that which eluded him. Far-sighted, they say. Can’t see what’s been right in front of his nose. But no one faults him, for it is the ability to see the forest instead of the trees, or something, that counts.”

"You never said anything,” Mike said.

"That is merely my laconic nature at work. The criticism is fairly taken. I have been endeavouring to correct this deficiency in my character by speaking more, and making myself clear.” 

"You never said anything," Mike repeated doggedly. 

“Neither did you.”

“Yes, but I only just worked it out just now. Since when have you… I mean…?" Mike turned practically pink, barely able to get the words out.

"Since first your visage became clear through my monocle. Well, no, that would rather be overstating the matter. Since that day, however."

“Why didn’t you say anything? You’ve said jolly well everything else there is to say about anything.”

“A lack of self-esteem. A paucity of hope. The despair that plagues the bright young things of this age. But all has ended well, although poor Madeline’s heart will be blighted when we leave this place, stealing away like thieves in the night.”

“I think not,” Mike said, and then paused. “Steal away?”

“Yes, of course. Don’t you want to?”

“What about Aunt Florence?”

“Her purview does not extend beyond our shores,” Psmith said thoughtfully. “Were we to leave this land of rain and shadows and sadness, she could not follow. Were we to successfully make our fortunes elsewhere, she would have no grounds upon which to require your marriage.”

“But I haven’t any money to go anywhere.”

“I placed the last of my fortune on a horse through Leonard this morning. I received the call while plating our breakfast that the horse had won. We have enough for two first-class tickets on a steamer. My father, in his distraction, has forgotten—though, to be fair, I have never told him—that I still own Cosy Moments. It has, in the years since our New York visit, become quite the heavyweight in periodical publishing. My father may have lost his livelihood, but I have not. _We_ have not. New fortunes, new world, yes?”

Mike had never been much of a talker. He answered, despite his mouth full of cream, with a kiss.


End file.
